


One Thousand Paper Cranes

by inusagi



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Origami, Pre-Series, UNIT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inusagi/pseuds/inusagi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toshiko Sato is folding one thousand paper cranes. Day 4 of the TW-July one shot challenge. Oneshot. Complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Thousand Paper Cranes

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Nope. Still not mine. But I do have some very snazzy sparklers to play with once this gets posted.

I was worried about my new recruit. I’d kinda figured that once she’d been sprung from that UNIT cell and was around people, she’d...I don’t know, bounce back. She was only there for about a month.

Which was the problem, I guess. She was there for a month. In a concrete box. With absolutely no interaction.

Humans aren’t built to withstand isolation. We’re just _made_ to touch and be touched, to talk and listen. What UNIT does is one of the most inhumane things I’ve seen in my life—and I used to be the Time Agency’s go-to guy for torture. I knew enough about inhumane treatment of prisoners to fill a library.

So I’d really thought that Toshiko Sato would bounce back, but she spends all her free time at her desk, folding paper into little birds. For months now, she’s been doing this. I don’t know what she’s been doing with them once they’re done—I think she takes them home. I imagine her flat is filled with nothing but hundreds and hundreds of strange little paper birds.

I thought it would take a couple of weeks, she’d slowly warm up to somebody—me, Suzie, one of those two idiots that psychopath Hartman sent over. _(And, for the love of all that’s holy in this world, once these two got themselves blown up, that’s it. I’m cutting off contact. I’m convinced she sends me the most incompetent possible people. Once, she’d sent a guy who didn’t even speak English. What was Jack supposed to do with a Medic who could not understand what patients were saying?_ ).

I can’t reprimand her about her work. Over the last couple of months, Toshiko had outperformed every expectation I’d entertained once I saw that sonic modulator. She wrote programs to translate alien languages, rebuilt artefacts from the Archives that even I had no idea how to fix, and even took her turn to get coffee from up on the Plass—and Suzie’s. I should probably have one of those “taking advantage of new co-workers is wrong” conversations with Suzie.

I wasn’t sure how to approach her. So I decided to wing it.

Tosh was sitting on the retro orange sofa, deft fingers making short work out of a little square of paper. I plopped myself down next to her and plucked the finished thing from her hand. “Why do you keep making these little birds?”

She bit her lower lip before answering. “When I was little, we lived in Japan. There’s a...legend, I guess, there that if you make one thousand origami cranes, that a crane will grant you a wish,” she smiled sheepishly. “Cranes are one of the most magical creatures in Japanese mythology. They’re said to live for a thousand years. I have two hundred sixty-seven left. When you’re all done, you string them up, it’s very pretty.”

“So what are you wishing for?”

“It’s...it’s a bit personal.”

I bumped my shoulder against hers playfully. “Show me how to make them. I want a wish.”

She looked up at me, obviously wanting to ask but holding herself back.

“I want you to be happy with us, Toshiko."

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: The 1000 origami crane thing is an actual thing. I like it. The second I feel confident that my son wouldn’t tear them to shreds, I’ll start folding! Today’s prompt was “Origami.” I hope that American readers had a good Independence Day! I love the pyrotechnics.


End file.
